


Look Sharp and Steady Into the Empty Parts of Me

by whereismygarden



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Calligraphy, F/F, Female Kylo Ren, Genderswap, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Kylo Ren Cries During Sex, Roleplay, Trauma, Weird Power Dynamics, ben solo's good boy sweater
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:41:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22622713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whereismygarden/pseuds/whereismygarden
Summary: This would be easier if Kylo wanted to feel it like Rey likes it, with a blow and a yank on her hair, a bite on the neck. Kylo likes when she does that, likes almost everything Rey does, but the bitter truth at the bottom of all their scratching, slapping play is that the well that is fear of physical pain or even anticipation of pain is shallow, depleted long ago. So Rey has to take that sharp edge and find somewhere she can still sting with it.She knows, intellectually, that vulnerability doesn’t have to be found with pain, but between the two of them, there’s no instinct for how. Rey has never experienced pleasure that isn’t dug out of pain.-Prompts were "Female Kylo Ren" + "Role-play." Post-TLJ canon compliant for a universe where Kylo is a woman. Not TROS compatible.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 8
Kudos: 24





	Look Sharp and Steady Into the Empty Parts of Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LinearA](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinearA/gifts).



> I had a presentation, test, and manual to write, and was complaining about it on twitter and asking for prompts to write something horny in order to bring joy into my life. LinearA kindly gave me a choice of topics and several days later, I've finished the fic.
> 
> I kept the name "Kylo" for my female Kylo Ren, so hopefully that doesn't take people out of it.
> 
> I edited this very quickly so sorry for any mistakes.

Rey finds the draping light dress in the market in Theed. The clothing of Naboo tends towards heavy layers and long robes, and she suspects this is meant to be worn over or under something else, but it’s the right size for Kylo, so she buys it. It should work for her purposes. If she’s going to do this, build a place that’s safe enough and scary enough for Kylo to really find whatever she needs, she needs tools. She wouldn’t try to pull off power cable insulators from a destroyer without a wrench to pop off the seals first. She isn’t going to let Kylo Ren wear her battle clothes to this fantasy.

She gets another outfit for herself, as well, but there’s no need to purchase some civilian equivalent to her last requirement. There’s more than one set of cuffs still in Kylo’s shuttle. She was Snoke’s interrogator—there’s worse than plastic binders in the cabinets and hold. Rey doesn’t look very often.

Rey leaves the binders and her new outfit on a chair in “her” room and walks into the main room. Kylo is sitting on the floor with a stylus and a peculiar plasticine tablet. When she presses in with the stylus, she physically indents the clay-like surface with scores and wedges, and after making a mistake she presses a button on the side that melts the surface back to smoothness. Rey knows when she makes a mistake because it’s usually accompanied by a blow to the poor practice dummy that’s also in the room, and sometimes a scream.

Kylo hasn’t been outside all day, even to the little enclosed garden of their lodgings, yet she’s still dressed in her heavy black trousers and the knee-length black tabard of stiffened and quilted fabric. Her one concession to Naboo’s warm weather is to leave off the jacket; the long-sleeved black shirt she wears is a little loose around her ribs, not gathered in with another layer of tight cloth.

Rey stops in front of Kylo with her hands behind her back and waits. She doesn’t wait long; Kylo jerks her head up almost immediately, pausing her writing. Rey tugs with the Force and meets no resistance as she floats the tablet and stylus out of the way. Kylo just looks back at her, waiting to see what she wants.

Rey takes the folded cream fabric from behind her back and is glad she’s standing and Kylo is sitting while she starts this. If she had to look up at the woman, she might blush more. She holds out the bundle of cloth.

“Let’s pretend,” she says.

Kylo takes the dress slowly. Rey pauses and lets herself reach out a little, try to feel Kylo. She’s not upset; she’s intrigued. Good.

“I’ll be back soon. Be dressed.”

Rey changes into her own new outfit: tightly fitted black pants and shirt, and a tan jacket that’s fitted and cropped instead of loose and hanging. It has a wide lapel, and Rey hopes she doesn’t look too ridiculous. If Kylo laughs when she takes a look at Rey, this will not work out.

The red belt with decorated buckle doesn’t even hold up the pants, just wraps around her waist, but when she looks at her reflection, Rey thinks she looks less like an Outer Rim scavenger turned Jedi pretender, and more like a Mid Rim mercenary.

She tucks the binders into the belt and waits a few minutes, until she can feel in the back of her mind the rising pitch of Kylo’s curiosity and nerves. Then she waits another minute, and walks back into the room.

Kylo is standing, looking slightly lost. The dress is shocking on her. It’s a simple thing, almost like a robe, and covers more skin than Rey’s usual outfit, but it’s still almost indecent at first glance. Her arms are bare from her elbows down, and though the neckline barely dips below her collarbones, the sight of smooth, pale skin dotted with dark freckles and moles makes Rey’s breath catch a little.

Kylo is so beautiful: tall with long legs, and full lips, and heavy breasts; strong, muscular even after a month of exile. Rey knows this, spends every night hooked under Kylo’s greedy, nervous arm. But dressed like this, it’s different. She didn’t take off her black leggings and socks, so even though the dress stops around her knees, Rey can’t see her toned calves. But she still looks different, vulnerable, almost like a girl. In Naboo’s humidity, the glossy black waves are just curls, a little frizzy and wilder. Her face makes Rey’s heart ache. The light fabric makes her skin nearly translucent, blue-green with blood at her arms, flushed pink at her cheeks.

Rey walks forward, and says, “Sit down.”

Kylo sinks obediently into a crouch, her eyes fixed on Rey. Curious, trusting, a little excited. Rey takes Kylo’s wrists and cuffs them together. She doesn’t resist, even when Rey tugs her bound wrists over her head and attaches the binders to what is definitely a hook for a jacket or cape on the wall. Her breath hitches, once, and then settles. She looks like she could be calm.

But Kylo Ren is an open book to Rey, has been since their positions were reversed and it was Rey restrained with Kylo looming over her.

Rey can read her easily, even without the Force letting Rey wander into her mind at will. Her lips are trembling as she works her jaw ever so slightly, her dark eyes are shining, pupils wide, and the muscles in her arms are tense. Rey follows with her eyes the line made by the edge of the cream-colored fabric that drapes over Kylo’s upper arm. The loose sleeves expose her arms nearly to the shoulder.

It’s a radical change. Even her posture, of looming, stooping shadow, seems like the stance of a timid ingenue with the change in color and style. Rey can see in Kylo’s unusually shy gaze that she’s off balance, unsettled but excited.

Rey steps forward, close enough to reach out and touch if she wants to, and Kylo’s eyes sharpen.

Rey wants to take a deep breath to calm herself: this is not her realm. Kylo is good at whispering quietly and frighteningly, at constructing a narrative with imperious words, at placing her gloved hands perfectly and carefully on Rey, and she can do it so well that Rey can shriek and fight her and she’ll never break or back down.

Since the night Rey nearly killed her, Kylo hasn’t hesitated to use her full strength with Rey, no matter the situation. It’s just another reason that now Rey wants to turn and flee. Kylo could break the cuffs with a thought, could turn the tables on her and wrestle her into their bed. She sorts of wants to ask her to do just that.

But no. If she wanted to get free, she would already be free. Rey isn’t really even trying to reach into Kylo’s mind, she only feels the presence of the other woman as she always does, and she can feel the deep, building thrill in Kylo. It’s shot through with anxiety, even with some genuine fear, but the fear is the kind with a sharp edge that excites as much as it hurts. Rey knows that fear, that thrill, knows how burning-sweet it is, like an electric shock, to feel good and bad at once.

This would be easier if Kylo wanted to feel it like Rey likes it, with a blow and a yank on her hair, a bite on the neck. Kylo likes when she does that, likes almost everything Rey does, but the bitter truth at the bottom of all their scratching, slapping play is that the well that is _fear of physical pain_ or even _anticipation of pain_ is shallow, depleted long ago. So Rey has to take that sharp edge and find somewhere she can still sting with it.

She knows, intellectually, that vulnerability doesn’t _have_ to be found with pain, but between the two of them, there’s no instinct for how. Rey has never experienced pleasure that isn’t dug out of pain.

-

_“Tell me a fantasy,” Rey whispers, drawing her hand over the tangled black braid Kylo is wearing. “I know you want things, you don’t have to be ashamed.”_

_“I know.” Kylo’s voice is low, close to the register of tears. Rey feels her press a sensation, an image, into her mind. She doesn’t usually do that, share her memories like that. Rey knows she doesn’t want to relive them, and they’re always unpleasant or even disgusting to see even as a message in the Force, but she still cherishes them. Kylo is always a bit lighter after telling Rey something—eventually, anyway._

_This is not a memory but a compressed feeling, a feeling of a layer of veils and walls and shadows, built up over a lifetime. Here, first, the natural distaste for pain, battered into masochism with_ ‘pain fuels the Dark Side’ _but also the terror of slaps and lightning._ He’s making me stronger. He’s making me stronger. He’s making me stronger. _“Embrace the pain, stupid girl! Welcome it, let it fill you up, remake you.” The faintest sliver of eroticism—the sharp tailoring of an officer’s uniform over someone’s broad shoulders, the memory of some fellow student’s warm hand, the heat of the sparks thrown off as she crosses her lightsaber across the blade of a Knight and feels the shock of impact through her whole body—is turned sour. “Even that. Yes. Make it hurt you.”_

_The young woman at the core of Kylo Ren sinks deeper behind the veils, trying to evade the sickness that rasping voice spreads through everything. There’s nowhere to go, nowhere safe. Basya Solo falls into Kylo Ren’s subconscious and when she stirs, sometimes there’s a flash of something bright that breaks through before the rot covers it._

_This goes through Rey in an instant._

_“I see,” she says, because she has to say something against the hot, dreadful silence and stone-like stillness that’s overcome Kylo. “You’re not even sure.”_

_“It’s there. I’m afraid to find it. Once I open it, it won’t be safe.”_

_Snoke is gone, at Kylo’s own hand, but Rey knows the terrible appeal of burying the truth so deep that you can’t reach it yourself. Deep enough that someone else has to unearth it with you._

-

“What should I do with you, hmm?” Rey asks the air. The red sash around her waist shifts as she puts her hands on her hips. “The Empire has a bounty of forty thousand credits on your head. Fifty thousand if your body’s still attached and breathing.”

Kylo lets herself rest the weight of her arms against the binders. They’re the wide kind, that won’t hurt her wrists. She doesn’t know what exactly Rey wants to do here— _let’s pretend—_ but she doesn’t want to hold her hands up the whole time. Unless Rey asks her to, but that wouldn’t be typical for Rey. But this isn’t really typical.

“The Empire?” she asks, shifting so she can sit instead of crouch, and leans her head against the wall. The soft fabric of the white dress Rey’s put her in shifts and moves against her. She feels a little cold.

“Don’t play stupid with me,” Rey says. She’s guarding her thoughts and feelings from Kylo. If she wanted to, Kylo could reach out and see her whole game, but that’s not the point. Rey asked to pretend.

Unfortunately, she doesn’t have to pretend some of the discomfort. The ticklish texture of the dress is distracting, and she feels half dressed. Rey sees her naked every day, but Kylo dislikes the way the fabric drapes, hides and suggests at once.

Rey has a new outfit, too, a tight jacket that shows off her slim waist and round hips.

“How should I know what the Empire is willing to pay for my head?” she says, trying not to sound petulant. Does Rey want her to be a Republican loyalist?

“As if you haven’t been in touch with your little spies in the assembly, princess! You’re not as clever or hidden as you think you are.”

Kylo’s heartbeat triples in speed, and she jerks involuntarily against the cuffs—not in an attempt to free herself, but in surprise. She searches Rey’s eyes, finding nothing, and then reaches out with her mind, only to be rebuffed firmly. Rey keeps talking, spinning out the story.

“It was a good idea, making everyone think you’d left Naboo and send all my…colleagues…on a wild goskla chase. But your encryptions aren’t as good as me.” Rey settles into a crouch herself, smiling slightly. “Now, of course I could use fifty thousand credits and the goodwill of our benevolent Empire. But there are other things I am interested in, princess.” She pauses. “Or should I address you as ‘your highness’?”

Kylo’s mind is spinning in at least different directions, all dark, some dangerous, and she barely manages to think _Naboo isn’t that kind of monarchy_ before Rey touches a finger to her jaw and turns her face. She remembers the fierceness Rey had, strapped to her chair. But Kylo can never have that kind of honest, scared bravery; she knows that.

“That would be ‘your grace,’” she says haughtily, jerking her head away from Rey’s hand. “Only Naboo’s citizens can address me as ‘your highness.’”

“Okay, princess,” Rey says, a low hum of amusement in her voice. Kylo feels a stir of heat. “Thanks for the etiquette lesson.” Her voice is confident, lazy, assured. Powerful.

No one in the galaxy is stronger than Kylo Ren. Even Rey can only match her, and that’s when Rey is fighting to kill and she’s not. Absolutely no one can touch her. But if she’s just a captive princess, in a dress that tangles at her legs, she’s not so safe.

“You can call me Captain Niima,” Rey says.

“Bounty hunter scum!” Kylo spits out. Rey’s hand darts out and grips her hair, dragging Kylo’s head to the side just a little.

“Careful, princess,” she purrs. “You’re not in your palace. You should think about trying to please me, not yourself.” Kylo pants through her nose, biting her lip. She pulls Rey’s hair all the time; it never feels this good.

“To what end? So you can collect fifty thousand credits and hand me over to torture? Better to have you kill me now, and make sure you don’t get the extra ten thousand.”

“I know, princess, that the knowledge you have is worth more than fifty thousand. So I think we can come to an understanding.”

“I’m supposed to take your word that you’ll let me go if I betray my secrets?”

“Oh, no,” Rey moves Kylo’s head back and forth lazily, rising forward onto her knees and leaning to speak directly into Kylo’s ear. “I’m not letting you go anywhere.”

She can’t help it; she gasps a pained-sounding little shocked gasp, as if she really is a captive girl in front of a pirate. Rey hums low in her throat.

“Your secrets are forfeit one way or another,” Rey says. “But do you think you can be this brave when you’re in an Imperial cell?” She lets go of Kylo’s hair and lowers her hand to rest gently on her neck. Kylo can’t move to shake her off. “When even I’m making you tremble?”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Rey croons, running her fingertip down the side of Kylo’s neck, from under her ear to her shoulder. Her skin prickles and tightens as Rey traces the edge of the dress’s neckline. “Not a pretty girl like you.” Kylo lowers her eyes to watch Rey’s fingers slide from her shoulder to her chest, just skimming the border of skin and fabric. Rey only touches her with her fingertips, doesn’t press her palm or the heel of her hand against her breasts.

“When my guard arrives, they’ll have _your_ head on a pike!” She says it as fiercely as she can, like it’s a real threat.

“How uncivilized, princess,” Rey touches her finger to Kylo’s lips. “You’re as much of a criminal as me, even if you won’t show it. Dressed all in white. You know in the Core, white is for innocence, right? Virginity? Is it thrilling, to pretend?” She pauses, licks her lips; Kylo is transfixed by the pink sheen of them.

“Or are you really that naïve?” Rey licks her lips again, bites them, and Kylo lets out a breathy sigh. Her skin is so hot, and the urgent want between her thighs for _Rey Rey Rey_ is making her squirm and shift. She can feel sweat running down her chest, in this dress. It’s too loose; she also feels cold with the way it lets so much of her skin touch the air even as it covers her. “Oh, you are.”

Rey is talking into her ear, bent over her but not touching her, and Kylo takes a deep breath, tries to push herself into Rey. She can barely _see_ with how tight and hot her skin feels, how much her head swims. This must be what it feels like. If she really was some lucky-unlucky figure faced with a flirtatious captor. She tugs a little on the binders, just to do something. The princess of Naboo that Rey’s cooked up wouldn’t be able to break out of them.

“Did no one on your wretched homeworld give you anything you need?” Rey slips two fingers into Kylo’s mouth, almost careless about it.

Kylo moans, tossing her head.

“Oh princess, you’re lucky I found you.” Rey finally touches her for real, just her hand gripping Kylo’s shoulder, but it isn’t a light tease, and Kylo flinches in surprise. Rey presses down with her fingers on Kylo’s tongue. “I can tell what you really need. Ask me.”

She’s starting to drool—it’s an inevitability, with the way Rey has her fingers in her mouth, but she tries to tilt her head, stop it. She tries to speak around Rey’s fingers, and flushes at the garbled mumbling that emerges. Rey delicately withdraws her fingers and grips Kylo’s other shoulder.

“What was that?”

“I said, what do you think I really need?” Kylo will be never a negotiator, never a composed diplomat. She’s gasping for air and her voice is trembling, though she tries to hold it steady, like an unruffled, unaffected queen who barely notices a pirate’s roughness, much less acknowledges it.

“That is not what I meant by ‘ask me,’” Rey says.

“I know,” Kylo says, feeling a little gratified by the blush that spreads on Rey’s cheeks in response.

“Don’t mouth off to me,” Rey warns, and runs one hand firmly down Kylo’s side to her hip, gripping tightly. “I’ve still got you chained up here.”

“You won’t let me have my freedom or my dignity and you want my compliance too?”

“I want everything,” Rey says, squeezing her hip, running her other hand up Kylo’s arm to wrap around her hand. “I’ll take your impudence and your obedience, princess, I know you’ll give me whatever I want.” She leans forward, rubs her nose against Kylo’s neck and jaw, then draws back.

Kylo groans and tries to shift again, feet catching against Rey’s boots. It’s too hard to be patient. She presses her lips together and closes her eyes so she doesn’t have to look at Rey’s legs and eyes and hands and chest and body.

“Ask me,” Rey repeats. Her hand caresses Kylo’s hip, her thumb pressing in and low, past the bone. “Ask me nicely, your highness. Or don’t. Your body is begging me already.”

“Please,” Kylo whimpers, and jerks as Rey flicks her tongue against her earlobe. The feeling excites her enough that she clenches her legs together and nearly sweeps Rey onto her side.

Rey rights herself and climbs over Kylo, straddling her legs and pinning them closed. Then she takes Kylo’s face in her hands and tilts her head back a little. Kylo moves, tries to get Rey to slide forwards and down, so that she presses her hips and belly and pussy against Kylo instead of just her knees. It doesn’t work, and she can only press her own thighs together. Rey kisses her, wet and demanding and harsh, nipping at her lips, shoving her tongue in like she’s drinking from Kylo’s mouth.

“Fuck,” Rey pants, shoving Kylo’s legs apart with her knee. “What was that about compliance, princess?” She pushes her knee forward, until it tangles with the already twisted fabric of the dress, stopping her from grinding it against Kylo. Kylo wants to rage at the denial, tear the dress apart, but her limbs are weak. She just whimpers.

“Please,” she repeats, looking up at Rey.

Rey’s hands move; one clutches her hip again, and the other settles over her breast, squeezing lightly, thumb rubbing below her nipple. She’s wearing the same breast-band as ever, but without the layers of shirt and jacket and tabard, Rey can tease her easily.

“You’re so beautiful,” Rey says, and kisses her again, as hungry as before, using her teeth. She bites Kylo’s neck and shoulder too, then sucks. “Fuck. Ripe and sweet for me.” Her hand scrabbles at the dress, jerking it up so her hand can slide over the bone of Kylo’s hip, then under her leggings. Her fingers play at Kylo’s breast, teasing her nipple through two layers of fabric.

Kylo’s arms are aching as she leans forward to try to kiss Rey some more. Rey pulls back, but because Kylo is taller, she has to duck her face down to really avoid her.

“Want something, princess?” She tugs at the neck of the dress and licks Kylo’s breastbone, biting at the swell of her breasts. Her mouth is so hot, but when she moves it, there’s a chill left on her skin. “I want to look at you.”

Rey removes her other hand from where it’s squeezing Kylo’s ass, dragging the dress up and up, tangling it in her hair and over her shoulders, ruthlessly pulling up until the fabric is caught and wrapped around the binders on her wrists.

“Beautiful,” Rey says, jerking Kylo’s breast band down and letting her breasts spill out. She runs her fingers over the hardening nipples, a little roughly. Her tongue flicks out and circles one, and Kylo cries out softly, a little involuntary ‘unh,’ and spreads her legs, wanting more. Rey sucks a little, grazing with her teeth, and lets Kylo thrash until her thigh is notched firmly between Kylo’s. It’s bliss, hot pressure against her core, grounding her against the electric tease of Rey’s tongue on one nipple and thumb scratching at the other.

Rey lifts her head, and puts her hands on Kylo’s breasts, rubbing her nipples between her fingers while tracing whispers of patterns on the sensitive undersides with her thumbnails. She puts her mouth against Kylo’s ear, lets out a satisfied sound.

“You’re beautiful. My prize. Wanting and shy and eager for me in your sweet little dress.” Rey’s fingers pinch abruptly at her nipples, and Kylo shoves her hips forward. She feels sweaty and hot in her leggings, and chilly and overstimulated above the waist. She wants Rey’s hot soft lips on her breasts again, to soothe her. She wants to rub against the bone and muscle of Rey’s leg until this tension breaks.

“Please,” she says again, tilting her head back. “Oh, please.”

“Gorgeous,” Rey says into her neck, smoothing her hands down Kylo’s sides, not pausing at the puckered scar from the bowcaster, just moving her fingers at the top of her leggings. “Your tits, your hair, your _voice_.” She moves her leg from between Kylo’s thighs. “Your skin, princess. You’re perfect. Like a flower.” She kisses Kylo again, hands sliding up her back yet again, tugging her hair. Rey’s hands are never still, always searching and working and taking. Kylo kisses her back, clenching her fists as Rey puts one hand between her legs, over her leggings.

“Are you wet?” she asks, voice ragged. Her fingers slip under the fabric of Kylo’s leggings and underwear, into the curls at her pussy. Lower, pressing delicately at her labia, and then Kylo _feels_ Rey’s fingers suddenly slide down, with no resistance. “Fuck. You're soaked.”

Kylo couldn’t really feel how wet she is, not in the leggings, and she can only shudder as Rey rubs one soaking finger over her clit. Very wet, then. Not surprising. Rey’s touch almost hurts, and she winces back.

Rey’s other hand, still on her shoulder, reaches up to where the cuffs are hooked and pulls Kylo’s arms down.

She nearly _howls_ with the sudden ache of her muscles being made to move, and Rey pushes her down, turning them. She’s on her back, her burning arms still bound, and with Rey braced over her.

“That’s right,” she grits out, and slides her fingers inside Kylo, curling them forward and rubbing her thumb hard over her clit. “I want everything. Come on, princess. Give me all of it.”

Kylo bites her lip, back arching. She’s going to come like she’s never come before, and Rey has barely put her fingers inside her. There’s a high, sharp whining sound, and she realizes she’s making it, whining and twisting to either evade or pursue Rey’s relentless fingers and voice.

“Yes. Basya. Sweetheart. I’ve got you. Let go.”

Her mind whites out at her name, and she comes, in a long, grasping wave, arms cramping, clenching on Rey’s fingers, choking out a strangled cry as bliss wracks every last inch of her.

-

Kylo is weeping even before Rey has pulled her hand away, turning her face to the wall. Rey snaps the binders open with the Force and lunges forward to cover Kylo with her body, wrapping her arms around the other woman’s shoulders and half lifting her off the floor.

“Shh,” she says, tugging Kylo’s face to her chest, petting her hair. She’s afraid, just a little, to reach out with her feelings, to let whatever Kylo is feeling now reflect into her mind. She might be angry at Rey. “It’s okay.”

Kylo clutches at her arms, curls into a kneeling position with her head pressed into Rey’s chest, her mussed hair half covering the breadth of her scarred back. Rey rubs up and down her spine, letting Kylo’s sobs shake her as well.

“You _bitch_ ,” she chokes, voice thick with tears. “I can’t believe you did that to me.”

“You’re safe,” Rey replies, blinking back a few tears. She’s starting to feel the weather over the landscape of Kylo’s mind, now. It’s black and stormy, riling up the layers of anger and forgetting and fervor and denial that Rey had battered through with her clumsy game. “You’re safe with me. I’ll never let anyone hurt you.”

The thing that only Rey understands about Kylo Ren is that Basya Solo is far, far more dangerous. Leia wants her daughter back, but the truth is that ripping away the mask entirely would destroy Basya. She won’t even let Rey call her by her real name. The sight of her mother might be enough to make her rip apart a world with the Force.

“I’ll always keep you safe,” Rey says urgently. “See?” She smooths Kylo’s hair, savoring the soft, messy texture, so different from the smooth waves she had aboard ship.

“It hurts,” Kylo gasps, one hand coming up to scrub across her eyes. Rey covers her hand with her own, sending a memory of a room on fire in a wrecking ship, of the bitter, bitter agony and clarity of the truth Kylo had seen.

“I know,” she says, leaning down to kiss Kylo’s head, her hand, her bare shoulder. “You know who you are, sweetheart. I know.”

She untangles the cuffs from the dress, but Kylo skulks off to put on her usual shirt instead. Rey follows, pulls her onto the bed in her room, and holds her as they lie silently. Kylo’s hair tickles Rey’s nose and cheek, and she presses her face against the soft black fabric of the shirt.

“You look pretty in this, you know,” she says, tightening her arms around Kylo’s waist. “Comfy, like you’re going to spend all day doing your etching.”

“It’s writing, and it is all I do all day.” Kylo’s voice is drowsy, still rough.

“Writing, etching, whatever,” Rey says, poking her lightly in the side. “This suits you.”

“Can’t believe you made me wear a white dress, you little shit.”

“You did look pretty. Princess.” She kisses the back of Kylo’s neck and feels the Force ripple with Kylo’s response to the word: arousal, longing, nostalgia, contempt, pain. So much pain. “It’s okay. I meant it, really, when I said I want everything. You. Kylo Ren. Basya.”

Kylo jerks again, at the name, but she doesn’t cry or fling herself away from Rey. She’s still tired, overwrought; Rey can sense it.

“Okay,” she says, half a concession, half earnest hope, and Rey keeps holding her even after she falls into sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> For the dress, I imagine a plainer version of Padme's and Shmi's outfit on Tatooine, a very simple thing.
> 
> Rey is wearing a jacket like Qi'ra in _Solo_.
> 
> Title comes from "Foreigner's God" by Hozier, mostly because I wrote this to his albums.
> 
> Comments are very much appreciated. :)


End file.
